First A Whisper, Then A Scream
by Eyowyn
Summary: Evelynn's fresh upon Runeterra, and she doesn't yet understand how to hunt her prey. But there's another hunter here, far older and wiser, and he's set out another plate at his table. Oneshot.


She is young, first shaped from black night and longing. Still not sure how to move, she appears and disappears between steps, peering into cracked windows and down back alleys, looking for that which is her all-consuming desire.

She doesn't know where she is, only a place of people, a place of misery. A place by that great hungering maw, water filled with salt from mortal tears, eating them like she wanted to eat them, and spitting their bones out onto the wharves.

There is a river, and she stands in the reeds, running her hands over them. The sensations prickle strangely. She is familiar with pain and ecstasy—smaller things are new. She swipes with magenta claws, and the heads of the reeds topple into the muck.

"Hello, darlin'."

She whirls, lashers flailing, artificial heart pounding. This is not human prey, but a vast creature, wide mouthed, grey and green skinned. It wears clothes like a human—and that was what she was forgetting, as the shadows cluster over her skin, hiding the parts that humans hide from the thing's watery yellow eyes.

She opens her perfectly shaped mouth but is not sure how to make words come from a constructed tongue. Her shadows creep around the creature's flipper feet, and she can smell tobacco, ale, rich meats, taste a thick layer of despair that it wears proudly, like one of its two coats.

But it itself feels no pain. She frowns.

"You must be confused, honey," the creature says, tipping the little hat on its broad, flat head. "You must be hungry."

"Hungry, honey," Evelynn says, after a little pause. "Hungry."

"And I can tell such fine repasts as I prefer are also to your liking, is that not so?"

"Liking, hungry," she says. She moves a little closer, her lashers curling up above her shoulders. This thing is sturdily made, but she could pierce it, rend it. It laughs, great belly shaking, and claps a flipper on her smooth shoulder.

Evelynn freezes. The touch is beyond repellant. She can sense in this creature a vast hunger, like and unlike hers, and suddenly she knows the fear of the little mouse under the hawk, the moth before the bat. It knows better than she does, and perhaps it knows how to eat better, too.

"You've come to the right place! For I am the River King, a generous man who sets a generous table, and I have enough for the both of us. But you must give me a little favor, isn't that so?"

"A favor? Hungry, both?" Evelynn asks. Her lashers whip forwards and backwards. It would be so easy to strike. But foolish. This shadow-body was painfully crafted.

"I can tell you how to take your hunger away, forever," he wheedles. He brings the flipper up to her constructed face. Smooth, damp. She is strange-still, eyes darting to and fro. "No one was there to teach Tahm Kench, but now I rule this backwater, and every place the river roams. Little shadow, I'll make you an eater that I'd be proud to have at my side. Say yes."

"Yes," Evelynn breathes. "Teach. Take hunger away, forever. Favor, yes."

"Very good," he whispers back. His voice is so smooth and rich. "You've made your shape so beautiful. You've watched the humans, you know what they want."

"You want?" she asks.

Tahm Kench laughs. "No, darlin', I'm too wise for such a feast! But I've a man who asked me for love he never had. You'll show him a night he won't forget for me, won't you?"

She licks her lips. "Eat."

The beast makes a horrible gurgling snarl, and his mouth flaps open, long teeth showing.

"Travel with me, honey."

And Evelynn lets the wet hideous mouth swallow her up. One eater knows another. One demon knows another.

* * *

The loveless man is scarred and heavy, torn at by the great devouring sea. Tahm Kench spits her out and she lands, graceful, crouching, and stands up with a long stretch. They are in some great swaying thing, and there are even other men there, but they shrink away from the bulk of the creature, and Evelynn tastes their fear, so sweet.

But they're not afraid of her. She dares not move, because she does not understand how to walk in a way to make men want her, but she looks at them with her lovely eyes, the shadows moving up and over her smooth skin. She reaches up and runs her hands up through her hair.

"I don't want her now!" the man protests, shrinking into his bunk away from the creature.

"Oh, but I've found such a lovely for you, brother. It's been a long voyage, hasn't it?"

Evelynn reaches towards the nearest man, her hunger overcoming her, expecting him to come for her. But they are wide eyed with fear—and she realizes, it's a cautious fear, a wise fear. They know this Tahm Kench, and they know his nature. They don't trust what he brought with him.

It's a tease, to have a meal before her and not be able to eat it. Frustrated, she walks through the darkness, melting into shadow at the motion, pushing out crude magic towards him, making him want her. He gasps and she finally reaches him, sinks her claws into his shoulders, and drags him towards her.

Tahm Kench fills the loveless man's vision, as he remonstrates with him. They don't notice Evelynn, sighing, at her victim's terror as his blood spurts onto the floor.

She presses her pretty mouth into his rough one, salty like the sea he sails, but he doesn't appreciate her, doesn't want her. He fights, trying to push her away, and she hisses in sudden pain as a boot slams into her side. The other men are kicking her, trying to rescue their friend.

Just a tiny taste of what she wants, and it's taken away. She leaps through the crowd, lashers tearing at them as she knocks the last man down and rips him open with one contemptuous slash. There's pain, but too blunt and fast, and their own clumsy blows and raw fear are something less than she wanted.

The men are torn and rent, but the only dying one is before her, and she leans down over his open flesh and shivers at its warmth on her stomach. Then she tries to kiss him, trying to tease out a little more, but his mouth is slack.

"Hungry!" she shrieks, frustrated, and the hate she feels comes out of the darkness, and impales the other men, and now they're all dying, and she is still hungry, and Tahm Kench has finally turned around.

"Well, now," he says, "Are you done amusing yourself with these weak-limbed men, who don't appreciate such a sweet dear girl as you? Come closer, child."

She runs her lashers through her hands, frowning, disappointed. The loveless man in the bunk is shuddering violently, and he won't want her, either. Reluctant, she moves through space, coming back into being next to Tahm Kench.

"I am the finest connoisseur of desire in Bilgewater, young man," Tahm Kench tells the sailor, who looks, blank eyed, at the pieces of his comrades. Blood falls easily from Evelynn's body, splattering on the floor, and she looks at Tahm Kench.

"I'll quench both your hungers before this night is past," the creature says, smiling wide. "Make him want you, darlin'. Hunger is something to be controlled."

His limbs hang loose, and his fear won't let him move. Evelynn focuses all her might on him, controlling the urge of her lashers to pierce, the want of the shadows to stab, trying to pull his own desire to the front of his mind. Facsimiles of clothing fade away in her eagerness. She tears his clothes off—salt stiff, they are still no match for her claws. This is the only man left—she has to be careful, make this one live as long as she can.

There is a tiny flame of something in him, despite all his fear. She stretches again, over him, so he can see her skin, her bones, and want to feel her.

"Quench, hunger," she purrs, pulling at his hands with hers, putting them on her skin.

Her magic blanks out his mind, and suddenly he is trying to tear at her, scratching at her with his blunt nails. The faint pain is a glimpse of what's to come, and she breathes quickly, trying to kiss him. But he won't, or he doesn't care, and she feels a ghost of disappointment. The loves she studied before taking this form, they would kiss, and sometimes hold hands, and she could smell their joy on them, and want to take it all, all, all.

She tries to thread her slender hands into his, but he is trying to shove her over, and she lets him, confused by this, unlike the gentle things she'd seen before.

"I'll kill you if you scream, bitch," he hisses, totally mad with her power, which won't let him think of the bodies all around them, or Tahm Kench, who he could reach out and touch.

Then he fucks her, no waiting, no trying to see if she wants him. She made a woman's body, and she knows that they are supposed to hurt, and so the pain washes over her, and her nature makes it good, even as she feels a flicker of disappointment. She wants something sweeter than this, so she can destroy it, and eat the suffering ever greater.

Still, she lets him do it, a bemused look on her face, and when she senses his pleasure is at its peak, she peels his back open with her lashers, right on either side of his spine. He screams, still inside her, screaming at trying to get away, and she pushes her lashers through him, as he pushed through her, as he expected her to be the screaming one.

Evelynn knows that humans need their lungs to breathe, and so she tears the delicate membranes apart, then pulls her lashers out of him, and watches him choke, bleed, and die, still between her legs.

Then, she looks up at Tahm Kench, and smiles a lazy smile.

"Hungry, yes."

Tahm Kench offers her a flipper, and she flows back standing, her clothes returning with her will.

"Wasn't that better, darlin'?" he asks. "Though, I do prefer my meals still wriggling when I'm done with the first course."

"Scream, better," she laughs.

"It still seems like you need to further your education at a fine gentleman's hands," he notes, looking at the carnage around them. The boat is still rocking in the grip of the unseen sea.

"Perhaps old Tahm Kench might pay a call to the captain of this vessel," the creature says. "Come with me, darlin'."

"Hungry?"

"Yes."


End file.
